High demand for trainers, limited resources

Wednesday

Not every school in the Times-Gazette area can afford an athletic trainer, but for those that can, trainers come with added benefits. Other schools are forced to improvise to have trainers at events.

Fisher-Titus

answers call

The Fisher-Titus Medical Center in Norwalk might be the leader in providing athletic training services to its area schools, which include New London and South Central.

Dan Schultz is the athletic trainer for both Firelands Conference schools even though the schools have different types contracts with the hospital.

New London pays a monthly fee for coverage of a certain number of games and has a trainer at high school events with regularity.

"The nice thing is that several other schools in our league also use Fisher-Titus and so we are all familiar with all the other trainers that are at the other schools," New London athletic director Randy Hord said.

"Those folks are very, very good at what they do, and they provide us with all the services that we need, and should we need them at a time when they are not scheduled to come in, all we do is call and they send someone out for us."

Schultz goes to South Central about once a week for weekly checkups. Student athletes are commonly pulled out of class to get examined or treatments, but trainers are not normally at South Central events.

"There are a lot of those schools " Western (Reserve), Monroeville, St. Paul, New London " that deal with Fisher-Titus and if we are playing against those teams, they are there for us as well," South Central athletic director Darren Hunt said. "So it's nice to have that security."

In addition to the athletic training services, Fisher-Titus supplies both South Central and New London with sports medicine training for coaches as well as specific diagnosis and injury related rehabilitation.

Going a step beyond

Northwestern took its student-athletes' injury safety a step further than just supplying athletes with a trainer.

This past fall, the Husky football team and the boys and girls soccer teams underwent ImPACT tests, an examination program that helps with recuperation from concussions. The tests are becoming more popular in professional sports.

Husky student-athletes underwent computer tests that measured their response and reflex times when healthy, and the information was recorded and stored. A trainer can tell when a player who has suffered a concussion has fully recovered when he or she reaches pre-injury response and reflex times.

"Fortunately, we have not had to use it this year," said NHS athletic director Bill McMillan, "but the idea is that if you have a concussion (the test) gives you a (baseline) point where you know that student athlete was functioning at instead of, "I think they're OK. I think their eyes look OK.' This way you can tell when they are back at the level they were at."

The school is in the second of a two-year, $8,000 contract with athletic trainer Lisa Yeagley, who is employed by Health Point, a division of the Wooster Community Hospital. The school's All-Sports Boosters pay the first $5,000 of the trainer's fee, and the school board picks up the rest, up to $8,000.

Finding a way

Even though Mapleton does not have a trainer, athletic director Ed Korns has used his own connections to make sure a trainer is on site for all home football, basketball and wrestling events.

The topic of having a full-time trainer was brought up to the school board last year, Korns said, but worries about costs ultimately ended the conversation. The topic is expected to be revisited after the school year.

The lack of a full-time trainer, however, has not prevented Mapleton's first-year AD from making sure trained personnel are on site. Korns, a former assistant coach with the American Indoor Football Association's Canton Legends, uses independent people he has found or had relations with in the past.

"I would love to have a full-time trainer here, and hopefully that's something we'll continue to work on," Korns admitted, "but like everyone, with finances the way they are, it's hard."

"I always say, for state you've got to have the training, you've got to have the talent, you've got to have the hard work, and you also have to have a little bit of luck. ... For everything they've been doing, it should happen."

Krissy Geren

Ashland High School swim team coach

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